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Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

arstechnica.com

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Re: Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

#11

Post by jerf »

awakeasleep wrote: post #6

I couldn't believe the gall behind the claim that the Internet is as limited a resource as electricity. The whole article seems ludicrous. "Discipline" internet usage? As if it's inherently bad or something?

The weird one to me is the recurring claim that there's no incentive for companies to invest, as if it's just a given that there's all sorts of greedy companies out there somehow coming up with free bandwidth they aren't paying anything for to anyone. Can someone point me to this free bandwidth? I'd like to get in on this action.

Re: Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

#13

Post by rfugger »

MichaelGG wrote: post #9
rfugger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, obviously everyone can't download at full speed at once and expect any kind of performance from the shared network, so some kind of sharing arrangement is needed. The usual method is to price the scarce resource somehow. The spectre of usage-based billing was already motivating third-party ISPs to investigate building their own routing infrastructure. Seems like the market will sort it out, no?

Billing by total bytes transferred over the month has got to be the worst way to get a "sharing arrangement". Given the prices for exceeding the limit (a couple dollars per GB), we can sort of rule this out as just an idea to help avoid congestion. The issue, AFAIK, with the market "sorting things out", is that there are few companies that have gotten government permission to build out end networks. I'd guess it's ne…

Bell will sell you extra usage for $0.125/GB if you buy it in advance.

Re: Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

#14

Post by redthrowaway »

And again the true concern of Bell et al is apparent: they want to protect cable. They don't care about internet, as the incremental costs of adding more bandwidth are negligible. This is simply more confirmation that they either want to a) force netflix to pay a tariff, passing the buck on to consumers to make it less appealing, or b) force consumers to pay extra for the bandwidth used by streaming video.

Re: Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

#15

Post by drdaeman »

Unmetered costs more. I don't know about Canada or US, but in Russia it's certain that your ISP pays for their uplink channels several times more than you would for the same bandwidth. Partially, that's because there are completely different SLAs, but that's also because a good share of users are consuming moderately (like web browsing) with only accidental high-traffic spikes. If every customer online will try to get their promised bandwidth at the same time - ISP will literally choke - and nobody would get even remotely satisfying connection. That's why ISPs have to impose bandwidth limits. Here, they're commonly shaping down the line after the traffic cap's hit.

In fact, I believe almost every ISP - unless they're monopoly - would be happy to drop the prices while keeping the satisfable service quality. Unfortunately, most of time they just can't (and when they can, they surely do).

Also, while it's certainly none of my business, I sometimes wonder why some individuals download terabytes of information per month. Considering the most heavy application I know of - downloading raw BD rips - they have to watch a movie every single evening. Must be quite a bad taste for a videophile, to say the least. For less traffic-heavy content, they just won't be able to consume it in time. I'm not saying that terabytes are not needed - sure there're cases where even petabytes might be necessary - but there're too many users who download whole day and night every month. Well, at least the Internets are backed up...

Re: Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

#16

Post by pyre »

rfugger wrote: post #13
MichaelGG wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billing by total bytes transferred over the month has got to be the worst way to get a "sharing arrangement". Given the prices for exceeding the limit (a couple dollars per GB), we can sort of rule this out as just an idea to help avoid congestion. The issue, AFAIK, with the market "sorting things out", is that there are few companies that have gotten government permission to build out end networks. I'd guess it's ne…

Bell will sell you extra usage for $0.125/GB if you buy it in advance.

But there's nothing to prevent everyone from using the bandwidth they've purchased at the same time.

Re: Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

#17

Post by pyre »

Charuru wrote: post #3
naner wrote: post #2

Companies like Netflix are "putting a great stress on the Internet and there's no incentive for companies to invest in maintaining the Internet." Usage-based billing would encourage people to adopt more bandwidth-efficient technologies Charging more for less won't provide incentive for companies to "invest in maintaining the internet", though.

Actually, yes it will. It'll set a low standard for cheap internet, thus making it economically viable for new boutique entrants to the ISP market, bringing with them new technologies and strategies. Google? Wireless? I don't believe in government interference. Giving more incentive for better encoding is also a valid point. Netflix offered 10 million for better recommendations. I'd like to see them offer the same th…

  > I don't believe in government interference.
But that's just it. Most of the telecoms in the US and Canada were built off of government subsidies, guaranteed (regional or nation-wide) monopolies, and/or guaranteed profits (see AT&T in the US). How can you then say that the government needs to be 'hand off' with a market that they've already skewed in favor of certain players? Not to mention that Bell in Canada is regulated this way by the CRTC because they control the last-mile telephone lines for DSL. Legally they are the only ones allowed to lay such lines, so should the government allow them to do whatever they want with their government-granted monopoly?

Re: Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

#18

Post by pyre »

guelo wrote: post #12

Actually, in a way, they have better internet in Canada then we do down here in the US. Most people here have one or at most two monopolists they can turn to for broadband. At least in Canada the government has tried to add some competition.

There was a similar period in the US when regional phone companies were required to lease lines out to 3rd parties, but I believe either the policy was changed or a court case deemed the rule to be invalid.

Re: Canada still wants to "discipline the use of the Internet"

#19

Post by torpor »

awakeasleep wrote: post #6

I couldn't believe the gall behind the claim that the Internet is as limited a resource as electricity. The whole article seems ludicrous. "Discipline" internet usage? As if it's inherently bad or something?

a) The internet runs on electricity, thus it is limited by the same rules. No electricity? No Internet. Period.

b) Discipline means different things in the context of its usage as a word. As a technical term, it is quite appropriate. You may know the word from the world of porn and fascism, but technically its quite feasible to discipline a line input in such a way that it behaves properly in the context of the rest of the system.

Not that I'm defending the position of the CRTC here, but I think its interesting to point out that you've had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to this without thinking it through.

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